Yes, It Exists: The Airplane You Can Fly Using Only an iPad

What do you give to the Apple fanboy (or fangirl) that has every conceivable I-gadget ever concocted? (Via AvWeb)

The iCub is an airplane built around an iPad. The iCub, a light version (more precise bureaucratic definition: an LSA a light sport aircraft) of one of the most popular aircrafts ever designed, the Piper Cub J3, sports the ubiquitous Apple tablet docked on the instrument panel.

The iPad receives data for the engine, attitude and mapping through engine sensors and the aircraft avionics and then it feeds it to different applications. As if this wasn’t enough, there’s also Wi-Fi relaying all data to an iPhone docked in front of the pilot or passenger sitting in the back seat.

The tablet and the iPhone both come with 16 pre-installed applications which help Apple pilots fly, navigate and survive in case of accidents. Just think about a GPS-enabled moving map with terrain awareness, weather overlay, landing and airport charts, airline-type attitude indicators and a bunch of different guides ranging from survival tips, animal tracks and first aid.

It goes without saying that these are not aviation-grade instruments, so caution is the name of the game, but buying avionics that display a comparable level of information could cost half the of price of the airplane itself.

At $92,900, the iCub it’s hardly a steal, but can you really put a price on the dream of the high skies and an iPad together?